Summary
Prime Target is as ridiculous as ever in Episode 6, arguably even more so as a dramatically inert set-piece leads to more profound stupidity.
It’s remarkable quite how bad Prime Target is, especially since it’d be easy to make it riveting. Episode 6, for instance, contains a heist in the Channel Tunnel that involves raiding an armored truck full of ancient tablets that may unlock the most powerful weapon in human history. But what that amounts to, essentially, is two idiots noisily bickering. Even by the usual standards, “The Last Link” is horrifyingly silly, as well as being completely dramatically inert.
And the seemingly impossible has happened — I’m now starting to dislike Taylah, who was the sole bright spot in an otherwise very uninterested cast, almost as much as I dislike Ed. Almost, that is. Ed remains thoroughly awful and aggravating and that in no way changes here. But Taylah’s hot on his heels.
Let’s talk about it.
The French Connection
After discovering that 17th-century French archeologists had preserved the missing information from the House of Wisdom, Ed and Taylah have made their way to Orléans to track down the preserved tablets. Getting access requires Ed to flex his good looks and charisma, which is hilarious because he’s so wildly uncharismatic that even when he’s trying to be flirty he just comes across like a boring robot.
However, Leo Woodall’s a good-looking guy, which is apparently all it takes to facilitate pretty serious breaches in protocol. They don’t get a chance to look at the entire set, though, and when they return the next day all the tablets — including the specific one Ed needs to complete his magical equation — have been loaned out to a “private collector” who turns out to be Bogdan, the Serbian mercenary.
So, we won’t be staying in France for long. Taylah is able to trace the plates of Bogdan’s armored truck, which reveal he’s bound for England via the Channel Tunnel, so she and Ed plan to steal the tablets while they’re in transit. Would an international mercenary working at the behest of some as-yet unspecified government make it this easy to track his entire itinerary? Probably not, but don’t think about it too much.
Lies By Omission
The character drama in Prime Target Episode 6 revolves around a couple of half-truths — or perhaps lies by omission to be more accurate. Taylah hasn’t told Ed that Jane tried to kill him and can’t be trusted, and Jane hasn’t told Andrew that Taylah is on to them. This leads to a fair bit of silliness.
For one thing, both sides just figure out the truth on their own. But before that there’s a really daft bit where Jane is able to track them because Ed finally cracks and texts Adam back, despite the fact he shouldn’t be carrying a phone at all due to very basic surveillance protocols, and then Jane gives him a quick ring, asking to speak to Taylah. Because Ed doesn’t know at this point that Jane tried to have him killed, he tries to call in backup. It’s dopey.
A bit of forthrightness would have been so much easier than this, surely. It’s just drama for drama’s sake, a string of contrived writing decisions designed to force Ed and Taylah apart at the final hurdle. These two both know that they’re in the midst of a global conspiracy and that they’re better off together than apart. Why are they acting like schoolchildren? But we’ll get to their full-on spat in a minute.
Leo Woodall and Quintessa Swindell | Image via Apple TV+
The Heist
The centerpiece of “The Last Link” is the scheme Taylah comes up with on the fly to steal the tablets from Bogdan’s armored car while the Eurostar is in transit. To do this, she calls in a bomb threat, which forces the train to be stopped and gives them an 11-minute window until a relief train arrives. While everyone’s distracted, Taylah can pick the lock and get Ed inside.
Naturally, this doesn’t go as smoothly as envisioned, but it’s dramatically inert either way because Taylah shows no urgency or concern whatsoever. It’s just like Prime Target to stage a daring heist in that boring part of a big train where everyone parks their cars. The whole thing could be occurring anywhere. There’s no sense of danger at all.
Nevertheless, Ed manages to snatch the right tablet and make a rapid escape from Bogdan, aided by Taylah and her magic laptop being able to hack into the train’s security very easily. It’s after the success that things go completely pear-shaped.
Ed and Taylah Fall Out
Prime Target Episode 6 ends with what is perhaps the most ridiculous sequence of the entire season, which is really saying something. Ed has managed to figure out all on his own that Taylah has been lying about Jane, and decides to confront her, so they have a really loud argument about the NSA, hired assassins, and the dangers of prime numbers in front of all the other passengers.
Ed shows his true colors once again here. Earlier, Taylah had opened up to him about the guilt she feels over the death of her boyfriend, who died in an accident in large part because she was drunk and persuaded him to get on the back of her bike. When Taylah confronts Ed about his general disinterest in the worrying implications of his work, he uses this trauma to eviscerate her moral character, making himself out to be the more righteous of the two by keeping everything “pure” and objective.
In a final coup de grace, Ed decides to leave alone, despite all the hired guns who are after him, and because he’s obviously a psycho Taylah lets him. “The Last Link” ends with him getting on one coach — albeit tailed by another agent under Jane’s command — and Taylah getting on another, where a man sits next to her and hands her a phone. Jane’s on the line, and it’s about time they talked about how she can clean up Taylah’s mess (again).
